


Through the Gathering Haze

by thesleepingsatellite



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, Bright shiny futures are overrated anyway, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1499810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/pseuds/thesleepingsatellite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"He's been making the same mistakes since the day he met me."</i>  - Kara Thrace regarding Lee Adama</p><p>The night of Zak's funeral, Kara and Lee go out drinking together to drown their sorrows, and Lee finds himself breaking all his self-imposed rules regarding Kara Thrace.  It goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Gathering Haze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haywire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/gifts).



> Beta read by [lls_mutant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lls_mutant). Thank you so much!

"Guess it's just you and me now," Kara said, her voice sounding strangely lost as they watched Zak’s best friend push through the throng toward the bar's exit.

"Yup," Lee said, raising his glass to his lips, eager to chase the numbing buzz that the ambrosia provided. He welcomed the burn as the liquid went down his throat - it was a welcome distraction from the tumult occupying his mind - and caught Kara's eye as he slammed the glass down on the table. She tried to muster that cocky grin that he was so used to seeing on her face, and he watched as it turned into a pained grimace instead.

"You wanna stay? Drink some more?"

"Yup," he said again. "Gonna close this bar down."

She nodded decisively, and raised her hand to summon the passing waitress.

* * *

Lee Adama rarely cursed his tolerance for alcohol. Tonight, of all nights, he did. When the pints of Virgon Brew failed to do the job, he had switched to shots of ambrosia. Kara, sitting across from him, had matched him drink for drink, her eyes becoming shinier and her cheeks more flushed as the evening wore on. After Zak’s friends had left, he and Kara had consumed an almost unreasonable number of drinks, and now Lee felt as though the world was beginning to blur around the edges. The music and chatter of the bar melted together into a cacophony, his head was heavier and the world was spinning ever so slightly on its axes. Despite this, the alcohol was doing nothing to dull the pain left by his brother's absence.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The pungent aroma of Kara's cigar overwhelmed the lingering scent the ambrosia had left, eradicating it completely. For a moment, the only thing that existed was that smell and the raucous music blasting from the speakers around them. There was no pain, no grief, no terrible guilt. He was suspended in time, anchored by that scent to the memory of a time when he, Zak and Kara drank the night away in a bar clear across the city whose name he has long forgotten. If he allowed his eyes to stay closed he thought that maybe he could stay there, maybe he could return to the time when his brother was still alive.

"Hey." 

He felt a shove on his elbow.

"You okay in there? You're not bugging out on me, are you? What happened to 'Gonna close this bar down', Adama?" 

He opened his eyes and found her looking at him, her cigar dangling from the fingers of her left hand. He blinked, taken off guard by her uncharacteristically unguarded expression. He figured that she also felt the effects of the booze now, and he was suddenly unsure of how to deal with this woman. 

From the moment he'd met Kara, he'd felt a tug in his belly, a sensation that propelled him toward her. Lee wasn't a man who believed in the Fates, but the immediate, electric connection he'd felt upon meeting her was almost enough to make him reconsider that position. As he got to know her he learned that his feelings for her - a snarl of camaraderie, jealousy and desire - were dangerous. That he’d tried to frak her on her dining room table with Zak mere meters away on the night they’d first met was proof enough of that. And so, he’d instituted two simple, self-imposed rules regarding Kara Thrace: never see her alone, and keep an emotional and physical distance. He followed them not only out of loyalty to Zak, but also for his own sanity. Now, in the wake of Zak’s death, his rules felt simultaneously irrelevant and yet more important than ever. 

When he had first heard the news of Zak’s accident, his immediate response was painful shock and disbelief, followed by a flood of concern for Kara that was tainted by an almost intrusive thought that he fought to banish from his mind the second it entered his consciousness: _"Now, she's free."_ The jealousy he'd felt mutated into a terrible guilt, because he still wanted her, this woman who was now his brother's bereaved. 

Earlier in the day they'd lowered Zak's coffin into the ground. Watching it, Lee had felt a strange disconnect from reality. He could hardly comprehend that his brother inside that glided box, that Zak was dead at all. Even now, Lee felt as though Zak was going to walk through the bar's door at any moment with a wave of a hand and a wide, easy grin, to settle in the booth across from Lee, wrapping himself around Kara as he pulled her closer for a kiss. Lee had always smiled with tightly clenched teeth during Zak and Kara's casual displays of affection in the past, barely able to keep his jealousy under control. It had cut deep, every time, and Lee would give anything to feel that pain again, insignificant as it was compared to the deep grief he'd felt in the wake of his brother's death. 

That wasn't going to happen now. Now, there was just Lee and Kara, and their shared grief mingling with unspoken and unacknowledged thoughts in the cigar smoke between them.

"Yeah," he replied. "Not gonna pass out, really. Just thinkin'. I'm okay."

"Okay." Kara said, chugging the remainder of her beer before signaling the waitress to bring another. "Okay," she said again with a laugh. "You know, that's what everybody has been asking me? 'Are you okay, Kara?' And I say yeah. Yeah, I'm okay, 'cause that's what they wanna hear. That's what I tell everybody. I'm more or less okay." She shook her head and set her empty glass down on the table. "S'not true, though. I'm so frakking far from okay-" She squeezed her eyes tight and Lee could see the tears she fought to suppress gathering at the corners of her eyes. "Frak. I'm so not okay."

Lee put a hand on her arm. She shifted in her seat at the touch, but didn't pull away. Encouraged, he tried for reassurance. "Kara-" 

"Gods, I'm such a frak up!" 

She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he could see they were slightly bloodshot, but whether it was from the alcohol or from crying, he couldn’t tell. 

"Can't teach anymore," she said, her voice almost a yell. "I can't trust myself to do that, can't trust myself at all anymore."

Lee frowned. "Why not? Wasn't your fault-"

"Oh gods, Lee," she said, burying her head in her hands. "You just- You don't-. I don't know. I just know I can't. I don't think I'm really cut out to be a flight instructor anyway."

"But Zak said you were the best."

"Yeah, well. Zak wasn't exactly the most objective." She paused while the waitress deposited pints of beer in front of them. "And look where that got him," she said before lifting her drink to her lips. After she took a long swallow she wiped her lips with the back of her hand, with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of a sob. 

He ran his hand along the smooth skin of her forearm, attempting to project some of the reassurance and affection that he felt for her into the touch. He was starting to understand that no matter what he said or did, she'd continue to blame herself for Zak's death, and he understood her decision to leave her teaching post. If he was in her shoes, he would do the same thing.

"You know," Lee said. "I'm here for you, Kara. I'm your friend. Whatever you need. You know, I could even pull a few strings with my XO-"

She waved a hand at him. "Don't bother. Your old man already offered me a posting on his ship."

Lee felt a sharp flare of anger. "You're kidding me. But he didn't say anything about that today, and you-"

"I think he was trying not to pressure me." 

"Oh," Lee said, taking a sip of his own beer before continuing. "So are you going to take it?"

"I dunno, Lee. Yeah, probably. I mean, what else am I gonna do? No one else wants me, not with my service record. It's either that or get assigned to some back water tugboat somewhere. Besides," she said, spinning her glass between her fingers. "I owe him."

"You owe him nothing," Lee said, incensed. "If anything he owes us, and Zak. After the way he was when we were growing up, and all the pressure that he put on me and on Zak to be the best and follow in his footsteps. Frak him, Kara. Just, frak him. If it wasn't for him, Zak would still be alive!"

"Lee," Kara said, leaning forward to get in his face. "Stop it. It isn't your father's fault. It's not. It's nobody's fault. It's-" She stopped suddenly, pressing her lips together as she settled back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest. "Just don't blame your dad, okay?"

Lee snorted, wanting to say _I'll blame him if I want to,_ but refraining, because even in his inebriated state he knew how childish that would sound. "You don't know him, Kara," he said instead. 

"Maybe I don't. Doesn't matter."

"If you go to _Galactica_ ," he said slowly, "We won't be able to do this anymore."

She raised her eyebrows. "This?" 

"Hang out,” he said, gesturing at their surroundings. “Go to bars together. Or to the beach house. Or play triad. Or go see that band that you were always talking about, what was it called-"

"Misguided Orbital."

"Yeah, them. Or dogfighting in the sims, or visiting that godsforsaken bowling alley you love, or, or anything. It'll be over, Kara. Zak's gone, and you'll be gone too, and I'll be- " His voice hitched as a lump welled up in his throat. "I'll be here. Without you guys. Frak it-" he said, his voice ending on a sob. He attempted to fight the tears back, but was unsuccessful. He had too much alcohol in his system and the day had been so difficult. He had concealed his emotions throughout the funeral, stoic as ever. He had been strong for his mother, who had been so distraught that she had to be sedated after the burial. He had expended a great deal of effort trying to maintain the outward appearance of calm, and now that well of serenity was tapped out. He covered his face with his hands, his elbows braced against the table, and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to keep the tears at bay. The last thing he wanted to do was break down in the middle of a bar.

The thought occurred to him that perhaps going out tonight was not such a great idea after all. Perhaps he should have gone home, by himself, to drown his miseries in a bottle of ambrosia in the privacy of his own home. That may have been preferable to ending up alone with Kara, one of his last links to his brother, and one that his father would be taking away from him very soon.

He felt Kara slide into the booth beside him. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and he leaned into the embrace, tucking his head under her chin. Touched by the unexpected tenderness, he gave in to the pain and allowed himself a spare few moments to cry, finding that it afforded him little relief as he actively fought the urge to break down completely. He'd save that for later. 

As she stroked his back and held him close to share their sorrow, the light perfume of her soap filled his nostrils, and scent memory took over once more, thrusting him back to the moment of stolen intimacy on the night they first met. He inhaled deeply, using the scent and the feelings it evoked to draw him out of the pit of rage and sadness that he'd fallen into. He felt his body slowly start to relax against her, his breathing evening out and the tears disappearing as the despair was gradually displaced by the slow-burning desire he had always felt when she was near. Her fingers trailed soothingly up and down his arm and then he remembered her touching Zak like that when they were curled up on her sofa together. He tensed, horrible guilt mingled with the longing he felt. 

He was so, so frakked.

"Hey," she said, her voice softer than before. "I'll visit, promise. We can do those things, and you can come visit me when you have leave-"

"No," he said. He shook his head against the crook of her neck, knowing that he should pull away, but not willing to actually do so. "As much as I'm gonna miss you Kara, I'm not setting foot on that ship-"

"Lee," she said. "That's kind of stupid. It's only your father, and he's just one person-"

"Yeah, well, I don't care. I want nothing more to do with him. And I can't believe you're going to choose him over me-"

"Hey," She interrupted. "I'm not choosing him. I'm it for me. Okay?" She removed her arm, and he reluctantly sat up straight to look at her as she shifted away. "I choose me. I'm going to fly a viper. It's the only thing I'm good at any more anyway-"

He shook his head. "That's not true and you know it. There's lots of things you're good at."

"Oh yeah, like what?" 

"Well, for one, Pyramid. You kick my ass at that any time we play."

"That's because you suck."

"At least I don't suck at Triad, but lucky for me, you're good at that, too. Which is great, because I love a good challenge." 

She smiled at him then, and it was hardly the wide, triumphant grin that often graced her face, but it was close. "You just want me to stay here so you can win back all those cubits I got off you last time-"

He continued, ignoring the jab. "And you've got your painting, you could just stay here and paint-"

Kara laughed. "Yeah, right. I'm sure I could make a great living selling my canvases on the street corner. I have to have some way to pay for all my ambrosia and beer-"

"Well, I could ta-" 

"You could what, Lee Adama?" She laughed out loud. "Take care of your brother's bereaved for him? How chivalrous of you. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not some delicate damsel in need of saving. Frak that-"

"No," he stammered. "I just mean I could help out."

"Seriously? Lee, what are you? Born on Gemenon or something?" She laughed again, overcome with mirth, and slapped his arm lightly, her body colliding against his in the booth as she chortled. "Never gonna happen." she said, wiping her eyes to remove the laughter-induced tears. "Oh my Gods. Don't you know me by now?"

"I'd like to think I do, but if I could get you to stay here-"

"I can't," she said, sighing she settled down and turned toward him, her body close and warm. "I belong on a battlestar, anyway. I belong in a cockpit. I belong in-"

"You belong in the sky," Lee finishes for her, his voice wistful.

"I do," she replied. "I really do." 

“I’m going to miss you,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away from hers. The corners of her lips curled upward into a bittersweet smile, and Lee's gaze locked on them. "Kara," he said, flicking his eyes up to meet hers again as he leaned in toward her. "I want-"

"Lee-" she said, and then, before she could voice any of the reasons that they both knew he shouldn't, he kissed her, his hands cradling her jaw to hold her close as he brushed his lips against hers. She made a small noise, and when he pulled back to look at her, he saw his conflicting emotions mirrored back at him. She bit her bottom lip as her gaze flicked down to his mouth before kissing him back. 

Her lips parted against his and he moaned, wrapping his arms around her as the kiss deepened, her tongue sliding against his and her strong arms pulling him close. His hands wound into her hair as her hands clawed the back of his shirt, their kissing taking on a frantic and desperate edge. She pulled him closer, her breasts pressing against him and heaving as her breath came rough and erratic. The first liquid thrills of arousal shot up his spine, warring with the guilt that lurked in the back of his mind. 

Then, it was over. She pushed back from him suddenly, bracing an arm against his shoulder to keep him at bay. Dazed, he looked at her, and watched as the shutters came down over her expression. 

"Frak," she said, her voice rough. She closed her eyes shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of the desire to touch him. When her eyes opened again, they were dark and serious. "We can't do this."

"Why not?"

Her jaw dropped. "My Gods, Lee," she said, her voice rife with disbelief. "You know why not. Do I have to list the reasons for you?"

"No," he shook his head. "I guess not."

"Listen. I am going to go dance," she said, sliding out of the booth to stand beside the table. She pointed to the crowded dance floor where a mass of people moved to the beat almost as one. "You can do what you want. But I am going to dance, because I need to move and not think about you, or Zak, or anybody else right now, okay?"

"Okay," he said.

She held his eyes for a minute, then turn on heel and stalked toward the dance floor. As she walked, her body started to move in time to the music, all sleek muscle and sinew, clad in tight black jeans, and then she was gone, engulfed by the crowd.

He allowed his gaze to linger on the spot where he had last seen her, hoping for a glimpse of her blonde head through the crowd. Then he went to the bar for another drink.

* * *

Three beers later, he had to piss. He had thought about going home, but he'd run into one of his old college buddies at the bar, and had spent the better part of the last hour and a half distracting himself from his misery by engaging in a drunken discourse about Tom Zarek's latest book. 

He pushed his way through the crowds and thought about leaving after he hit the head. Though he had kept an eye on the dance floor, he hadn't seem Kara since she'd leapt off into the crowd. Lee didn't even know if she was still here. For that matter, since he hadn't stayed where she'd left him, he figured that she, likewise, didn't know he was still here. He decided to do one sweep of the dance floor in an attempt to locate her before heading home. He was frakking exhausted, more than a little drunk, and he needed to sleep.

The restroom door closed behind him, muffling the music's pounding bass. The room was sparsely appointed and half full of people going about their business. He moved to the urinal and began to relieve himself, closing his eyes against the brightness of the fluorescent lights. Without visual input, the sounds that surrounded him became more distinct. Above the chatter and the music that filtered in from the bar, he could hear the sound of two people frakking in the stalls behind him. 

When he moved to the sink to wash his hands, the noises from the stall became louder, erupting into a series of regular masculine grunts in sync with a staccato banging noise, overlaid by breathy feminine moans. The man at the sink next to him snorted and said, "Sounds like somebody's having a good time."

Lee smiled tightly. "Sounds like," he agreed. He shut off the taps and when he moved to the hand driers, the noises from behind the rattling stall door became louder still. 

"Frak, yeah. Harder, frakking right there-" 

Lee's head whipped around to the direction of the stall. _Kara_. That was Kara in there. 

Lee collapsed against the wall as if he had been shoved, his hand to his chest and his eyes wide in incredulity. He would know the husky tones of her voice anywhere, and, thanks to the lamentably thin walls of the beach house that he and Zak used to go to, he was inordinately familiar with what she sounded like during sex. 

"Hey, you okay?" He tore his eyes away from the stall door to blink at the man who'd spoken to him at the sinks. 

Lee shook his head. "Not really."

"Well, you looked like you were having a heart attack or something."

Lee swallowed past the lump in his throat. "No, no heart attack," he said, followed by the thought _At least not the physical kind_. His eyes locked onto the stall door once more, and he saw the guy's head turn as he followed Lee's line of sight.

"Oh, I get it," the guy said, clearly putting two and two together. The commotion from behind the stall door had escalated, and the door was rattling so much that Lee thought it was going to shake off its hinges. "Sucks, man." The guy said, shaking his head before walking away. "Take care, okay?"

"Sure," Lee said vaguely, unable to tear his eyes away as the noise reached a crescendo before dropping away almost completely. The thought occurred to Lee that he should probably leave the room and walk out of the bar completely. He should go home and sleep off the alcohol, hoping that this incident would be gone from his memory when he woke up in the morning. He knew how creepy it was to lurk in the restroom waiting to get a look at the two people who had been frakking in a stall just minutes ago. He knew that even if his suspicions were correct, that if it was Kara in there, that he had no right to be jealous, and that what he was doing was unacceptable. He knew all these things, and yet he could not stop himself from settling against the wall, folding his arms over his chest and waiting as he stared at the door with narrowed eyes. He had to know if it really was her in there, had to see her.

He stared at the beige metal door for what felt like an eternity. Other people milled around him, throwing him the occasional suspicious glance before redirecting their attention elsewhere. Eventually, he heard the sound of the door's metal slide lock jiggling and the stall door opened. 

Seeing Kara exit the stall looking flushed and disheveled was like a punch in the gut. 

"Having a good time?" Lee spat out.

Kara looked at Lee and froze in place, blocking the path of her companion, a handsome dark haired man in a fleet uniform that bore a major's insignia at the collar. Lee watched as the man frowned in confusion, putting a hand to her shoulder before glancing up to meet Lee's eyes. 

"A friend of yours?" The major asked.

"Yeah," Kara said. She averted her eyes from Lee's and visibly steeled herself as she moved out of the stall's doorway toward the sinks. "You could say that."

"So, this is your plan, huh Kara?" Lee asked, stepping toward her. "Just frak the pain away?"

"It's working so far," Kara replied with feigned nonchalance as she washed her hands. 

"Hey man," the major said, gesturing with his arms wide in a placating gesture. "I didn't know she was here with anybody tonight. If I'd known-"

Without thinking, Lee's hand curled into a fist. He swung out, aiming to punch with the major's jaw, but instead of the satisfying pain that came with connecting with bone and flesh, the breath was knocked out of him as he was body slammed against the wall. 

Kara's eyes blazed with fury as she shoved him against the wall with one hand. "Stop it!" She yelled, her voice ringing in the room, attracting the stares of onlookers. "Just stop it! You have no right!"

Lee pushed aside her arm that pinned him against the wall, and advanced on her, breathing hard. Gods, he could smell the sex on her, and the scent of it was infuriating. "You frakking cheated, Kara!" Lee yelled, his voice cracking.

"You can't cheat on a dead man, Lee!" Kara yelled, before dropping her voice. "You're just pissed that it wasn't with you."

The truth of Kara's words cut him deeper than any knife would have. "Frak you," he said through tightly clenched teeth, the words loud in a room that had become strangely quiet as the rest of its occupants listened in on their confrontation.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She hissed.

Behind Kara, the major cleared his throat. "Hey," he said awkwardly. "So, um, I'm just gonna head out-"

"Yeah," Kara replied, her eyes still locked with Lee's. For a moment, they held an abject, troubled expression that he was unused to seeing on her face, and then she closed her eyes, and shook her head before turning to the major. "I'll go with you, share a cab or something."

"Your friend going to be okay?" 

Kara threw a mournful glance back at Lee. 

"Oh, don't worry about me, Kara, I'll be just fine," Lee hissed.

Kara held his gaze for a moment before turning to follow the major out of the room. Lee toward the wall, leaned against it, pillowing his forehead on his arm. Slowly, the noises around him returned to a more normal din and clamor, overlaid by the music from outside.

* * *

Hours later, he laid in bed unable to sleep. His body was alternating between hot and cold, unpleasantly sweaty as the alcohol worked its way out of his system. His legs tangled with the sheet as he tossed and turned, his mind worrying at the tangle of emotions surrounding Zak and Kara. His defenses – destroyed by the alcohol that suffused his system and the events of the evening – gave way, and he finally allowed the enormity of Zak's death to hit him. Great, wracking sobs consumed his body as he cried into the pillow, mourning the loss of his brother, mourning the children they were years ago, and the future that would never be.

In that future, Kara would have been his sister-in-law, and Lee felt like the worst kind of brother because he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would have spent his life wanting her. He was certain that she felt the same way about him, and he had known that since the night that they’d met. It stung that despite their mutual attraction, he knew she would never have chosen him in the hypothetical future, and even now she was choosing to be with somebody else. 

As he watched the dawn break through his bedroom window, he realized that Kara was right. He was well aware of the many reasons that they shouldn't get involved, and his guilt over wanting her consumed him. It felt like a betrayal to want her all the more now that Zak was dead, but this adoration of Kara Thrace was part of him, no matter how much he wished otherwise. 

The sun rose into the sky, and Lee finally fell into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

* * *

The insistent ring of his telephone intruded upon his sleep, drawing him out of blissful unconsciousness. He groaned and squinted into the bright midday light suffusing his bedroom, his head pounding as he clawed at the handset on his bedside table.

"Hello?" He winced at how rough his voice sounded.

There was a pause, and he heard the person on the other end of the line take a deep breath before speaking.

"It's Kara." She said, her voice quiet. "You get home okay?"

"Yeah," he said. Rolling over onto his back, he laid his free hand over his eyes to block out the light as memories of the night before came to the forefront of his mind. 

"Good. I was worried about you."

"Well," he said, his tone sharp. "You have a funny way of showing it."

She sighed. "That's not fair, Lee."

"Why'd you do it, Kara?" he said, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice. "Just tell me why-"

"Because I'm a frak up, Lee," she said, her voice quiet and broken. "Just try to keep that in mind."

There was a click and then silence as the line went dead.

* * *

The fleet had given him a week off after the funeral for bereavement leave. He'd spent much of that time in his apartment, only leaving to meet with concerned friends or go to the gym, channeling his anger and despair into physical exertion. 

Five days after the funeral, he had a terse meeting with his father at the base where he'd learned that Kara had accepted the posting on _Galactica_ , and that she'd report for duty there within a few days. 

She hadn't contacted him since that strained telephone call the day after Zak's funeral. He thought several times about reaching out to her, but knot of emotions that churned every time he thought of her held him back. Now, it seemed as though she was going to leave the planet, report to _Galactica_ , without so much as a good bye. That hurt more than seeing her with another guy did. Lee just wanted his friend back.

The afternoon before she was due to leave, there was a knock at his door. He opened it to find Kara on his doorstep in her dress blues, a box in her hands.

"Hi," she said, her voice unsure and strangely formal. "Can I please come in?"

"Sure," he said, stepping aside to admit her. She walked into the apartment and set the box down on his coffee table. 

"I brought some of Zak's things," she said. "I figured that you'd want them."

"Oh," he said, recognizing the box as a peace offering - one that he was eager to accept. He approached the table and opened the box, looking inside to survey the detritus of his brother’s life contained within.

"It's just some photo albums,” she said, coming to stand beside him as he looked through its contents. “Some cufflinks and that chain that he used to wear around his neck all the time. Some books."

Lee reached in and picked up a framed photograph of him and Zak when they were small children. It was taken at the beach house, and though they were both sunburned, they had wide grins on their faces as they sat side-by-side on a picnic bench. He smiled as he ran a finger along the simple wooden frame, and looked up at Kara. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "This means a lot to me."

"You're welcome," she said, sounding oddly detached. "So, I don't know if you heard, but I'm reporting for duty on the _Galactica_ tomorrow."

Lee nodded. "I did hear. I saw my father a few days ago, and he told me. I figured that after what happened, you were going to leave without saying goodbye."

"I thought about it," she confessed. She sat down on the sofa and looked up at him. "Things are just so frakked up right now, Lee. But I couldn't leave without seeing you."

He sat down next to her, keeping the photograph in his hands to stop him from reaching for hers. "For what it's worth," he said. "I'm sorry about what happened. I really am, Kara." 

"I know. I am too," she turned to him. "I think it's better for us that I'm leaving. You don't want me, Lee. Really, you shouldn't. You should get one of those delicate girlie girls who are always batting their eyes at you. Not me, Lee. I'm nothin’ but trouble."

"Don't say that," Lee said, hurt that she would talk about herself like that. 

"I'm not what you need, Lee,” she insisted, her eyes serious. “And you're not what I need, either."

He looked down at the photo in his hands, not really seeing it. It was one thing to suspect that she didn’t need him in her life, but to have her say as much hurt deeply. Yet, despite the bluntness of her words, it was surprisingly comforting to hear them said aloud as it provided a concreteness and definition to their relationship that was lacking previously.

He took a deep breath, before speaking. "And what do you need, Kara?"

"I just need to leave here. As strange as it sounds, I think routine of life on a battlestar will do me good."

"Yeah, I get that," Lee said, understanding. He'd served a tour on the _Centaurus_ a year ago, and he knew that the day-to-day regimented life on a battlestar during peace time had a certain predictability to it that could be comforting. It was a life with few surprises, and one where most of the hard decisions were made for you. He just wished that she was going to any ship other than the _Galactica_. His anger toward his father for driving his brother to push himself too far was amplified by the knowledge that his father was now taking Kara away from him also.

She put a hand on his arm. "Are we good?" Kara asked. "Friends?"

"Yeah. Friends." Lee replied, turning to her. She smiled at him, and reached out to shake his hand, but instead he put the photo down, grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a hug. She tensed within his arms momentarily before relaxing and returning the embrace. He'd take what he could get when it came to Kara Thrace. 

"Well," she said, breaking away. "I gotta go. I haven't even started packing yet, I have paperwork to complete, and I have to meet with my current SO before I leave."

"I get it," Lee said with a nod as he watched her retreat toward the door. "Good luck out there, Kara."

"Don't need luck when I've got skills, Lee," she replied with a wink. He laughed, glad to see that she was starting to regain some of her characteristic swagger that had been absent in the days following Zak's death. "You take care, too." 

"Good bye, Kara."

"See you around, Lee," she said, before disappearing out the door. It closed behind her with a click.

He moved to the window and watched as she walked down the path to the driveway without a backwards glance. She hopped in her Jeep and pulled out of the drive way faster than was strictly necessary, her blonde hair whipping in the wind.

Then, she was gone, and he was left reflecting on the impact that her presence had had on his life. Though he'd agreed to friendship with her, he didn't think they’d ever truly be friends, not when he felt that they could be so much more. He felt her exit from his life keenly, and reassured himself with the thought that he would see her again one day. He had to believe that it would happen.

Perhaps when they encountered one another in the future, he could try again. And until then, he had a life to live.

 

//END

**Author's Note:**

> The gentleman with whom Kara has her tryst is the "Major From Wherever" referenced in KLG pt.1.


End file.
